Tag: "rural"

Georgia Bill Aims to Limit Investment In Internet Networks

Posted February 12, 2013 by christopher

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The Georgia General Assembly is considering another bill to limit investment in telecommunications networks in the state, an odd proposition when just about everyone agrees states need as much investment in these networks as possible.

House Bill 282, the "Municipal Broadband Investment Act," purports to limit the ability of public entities to invest only in "unserved" areas. But as usual, the devil is in the details. This bill will be discussed on Wednesday, Feb 13 at 4:00 EST in the Telecom Subcommittee of the House Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications committee (Committee roster here).

We strongly encourage Georgians to write to members of this committee and explain that these decisions should be made at the local level, not by the state. Communities each face unique circumstances regarding the need for telecommunications investment and they can be trusted to make informed decisions after weighing the available evidence.

Many local governments have invested in modest networks to connect local businesses, but such investments will be prohibited in Georgia if residents in the area are already served with a connection of at least 1.5 Mbps in one direction. This baseline is far lower standard than the FCC's definition of "basic" broadband: 4 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. Setting a low baseline hurts communities but rewards carriers that have refused to invest in modern networks.

This bill poses a dramatic threat to the ability of local governments to encourage economic development and provide the environment necessary for the private sector to create the jobs every community needs. See our fact sheet on how public broadband investments have created jobs.

Supporters of this bill will claim that it only restricts investment to areas that are most needing it. This argument is not only flat wrong, it comes mostly from those most interested in preventing, not encouraging, investment.

The bill will effectively prohibit any community investment because the cost of collecting the data and making the case that areas are unserved...

WiredWest Makes Significant Progress in 2012

Posted February 7, 2013 by lgonzalez

We enjoy bringing you news from western rural Massachusetts and the WiredWest Cooperative. We want to share the update on 2012 activities and some of the plans for 2013.

Sixteen new towns became members in 2012, which brings the grand total to 42. Business planning progressed during 2012. From the WiredWest newletter:

Significant work was undertaken in 2012 to enable financing and buildout of the network. That work was made possible by grants from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, Berkshire Regional Planning Commission and the Central Berkshire Fund, in addition to support from donations, Cooperative membership fees, and thousands of volunteer hours.

The group also conducted a market survey in member towns. WiredWest confimed that demand is strong in the region. The organization is using the information to determine what services to offer and to support pro-forma financial statements, developed with help from groups that know the ins and outs of community broadband:

WiredWest has created comprehensive pro-forma financial statements with input from other municipal fiber networks and appropriate financial expertise. The leadership team has met with a number of public and private financing sources and advisers to refine our financing strategy and put the project on track for financing in 2013.

WiredWest also commenced a Support Card Campaign in its member towns. Potential customers, commercial and residential, shared their support and the results will help with network design. The campaign will provide potential funders evidence of interest in future network services. Residents and businesses can still complete a Support Card and are...

Scarlett McGrady Explains Virginia's Wired Road

Posted January 29, 2013 by christopher

The Wired Road is an ambitious fiber optic and wireless project offering Internet access to several underserved areas in rural Virginia. For the 31st episode of our Community Broadband Bits Bits podcast, Scarlett McGrady joins me to discuss its history and impact on the region.

McGrady is the Director of the Grant Community Computing Center [link to Facebook page], which providers a variety of services including computer literacy courses.

The Wired Road has long had gigabit capacity for those who are within range of the fiber optic connections. Anyone who can take a service from the network has to choose a service provider as the network is a pure open access approach: the community-owned network does not offer any services directly to subscribers. Instead, the Wired Road builds the infrastructure to enable independent service providers to offer services.

We discuss the Wired Road and the many ways that rural residents enjoy using the Internet to improve themselves and their businesses. You can find our previous stories about the Wired Road here.

Read the transcript from this show here.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.

This show is 20 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Search for us in iTunes and leave a positive comment!

Listen to previous episodes here. You can download this Mp3 file directly here.

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to mojo monkeys for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

Electric Coops Natural Choice for Expanding Rural Internet Access

Posted January 25, 2013 by lgonzalez

“The electric co-ops represent possibly the greatest potential for expansion of really good infrastructure in rural America,” [Todd] Pealock said, explaining how it’s a natural fit for co-ops to be infrastructure providers.

“It’s very synergistic for our linemen to hang cable, to lift the hardware up,” Pealock said. “The splicing is very natural for them.”

Todd Pealock is CEO of Habersham Electric Membership Corporation (EMC), and chairman of the board of North Georgia Network. In a recent article in the Electric Co-op Today news page, Pealock described how electric coops have a natural affinity for bringing broadband to rural America. We brought you a similar news story from Missouri earlier this year. Electric coops are partnering with the public sector in a range of projects across the country.

The North Georgia Network project is funded primarily with a $42 million stimulus grant and state grants contributed to building the 260-mile backbone. Another 800 miles of middle and last mile installation was completed on November 30, 2012.

The project already connects schools, government, hospitals, higher ed, and other community anchor institutions across an eight county area. Over 2,000 homes are connected to the open access network. Businesses also trust their broadband needs to the network, intended to spur economic development in the region. In addition to Habersham EMC, Blue Ridge Mountain EMC is also a partner.

“It’s been a natural magnet of interest to the business community,” Pealock said. “I think they see this as tremendous infrastructure.”

Because they are cooperatives, owned by the customers, these organization are accountable to communities in ways that absentee-owned companies like Windstream, Frontier, and others are not.

Broadband Communities Magazine Spotlights ILSR's Chanute Report

Posted January 15, 2013 by lgonzalez

We are pleased to announce that an excerpt of our report, Chanute's Gig: One Rural Kansas Community's Tradition of Innovation Led to A Gigabit and Ubiquitous Wireless Coverage, is now highlighted in the newest Broadband Communities Magazine. The November/December 2012 issue focuses on economic development.

Editors chose our report because it shows how a community can successfully develop a network to address community needs. The result is greater economic development and a range of increased community benefits. In addition to our report, several other articles focus on economic development and come from authors such as Reed Hundt and Blair Levin, Doug Adams and Michael Curri, Ken Demlow, Craig Settles, and David Moore.

You can access the digital edition online and see the entire issue table of contents at Broadband Communities Magazine Online.

You can still download the full report from the ILSR website and check out some of our other resources including case studies, fact sheets, video and audio.

Network Moves Forward in Leverett, Western Massachusetts

Posted December 20, 2012 by lgonzalez

This past spring, we introduced you to the small town of Leverett, in rural western Massachusetts. Having been largely ignored by the cable companies and left behind by Verizon's DSL service, the community overwhelmingly approved a town-owned network initiative in a May vote. They decided to finance the FTTH network with a 20-year bond measure.

The debt will be serviced by both the revenues from selling services on the network and a modest increase in property taxes estimated at 6%. Local leaders calculate the increase in property taxes will amount to less than the savings created by lowering existing DSL and telephone services.

Peter d'Errico, of the Leverett Broadband Committee gave us an update via email:

We issued a Request for Information (RFI) in September. Thirteen respondents gave us a wealth of information about the state of the industry and their readiness to engage with our project. Based on this information, together with our already-completed network design, we are now crafting an Invitation for Bids (IFB) for the network build and one year's maintenance. We expect to issue the IFB early January, with a return date in February, which will allow us to select a contractor shortly thereafter.

As soon as we issue the IFB, we will draft a Request for Proposals (RFP) for network operator / service provider. This will also be based on the information gathered from the RFI and our design.

We have initiated the 'make-ready' process with the local utility and phone company.

A November Gazette.Net article [requires login] on the project described some temporary setbacks due to Hurricane Sandy and an October storm that came through the area. In order to keep the project momentum going, the committee is gathering the pieces needed now and in the future. Early prep work will make launching the network that much easier. From the article:

Leverett homeowners already received an easement request in...

Rural California Farms Need Fiber to be Fertile

Posted December 3, 2012 by christopher

In yet another reminder that fiber optics and wireless are complementary, not substitutes, we just read about rural California farms needing better telecommunications that the big companies have refused to provide.

This article offers a good introduction to why farms need access to the Internet. Modern farming takes advantage of gains in communications technology -- when it can and is not hobbled by a lack of modern infrastructure. For example:

An even more efficient use of water, said Bryon Horn, is to put moisture sensors into the soil beneath individual trees, like olives and almonds, so that each tree gets exactly the right amount of moisture. But that requires something that the valley lacks: wireless connectivity. In fact, even commercial cellphone coverage in the area is spotty.

...

But doing so has been difficult. The larger telcos, she said, are not interested, and a consultant representing smaller telecommunications companies told Hogg and other officials that the large telcos make it almost impossible to expand to underserved areas. To buy wholesale Internet access from AT&T in the Salinas area, the consultant said, costs $136 per megabit per month compared to 50 cents per megabit per month in the city of Sunnyvale. [emphasis ours]

Wireless works best where it has access to abundant wired connectivity. Just like plants need water, wireless towers need fiber to backhaul the data. Having AT&T as your only option is bad news. AT&T exists to make profits, not provide essential services at affordable rates. This is precisely why we argue that residents and businesses must have some voice in the telecom networks upon which they depend -- they are too important to entrust to massive corporations like AT&T or Comcast.

The public built the roads that allow these farmers to get their crops to market and it ensured that they were connected to the electric grid. Despite entirely too many subsidies, the large providers have not only failed to offer a modern connection but are actually hindering others from doing it. It is time to stop subsidizing those companies and embrace the benefits of ownership by cooperatives or local governments that are locally accountable.

From what we can tell, some in the San Joaquin Valley Regional Broadband Consortium get it and...

ECFiber Customer Shares Her Story, Locally Owned Network Continues to Grow

Posted November 19, 2012 by lgonzalez

Last year, we reported that ECFiber was in the process of connecting rural Vermont, with a focus on connecting those who had no access to broadband. In addition to large investments from a limited number of investors, local citizens began lending funds to expand the network.

In a recent open letter to the Governor, published in the Barre Montpelier Times Argus, Laura Zantzinger from Barnard describes how ECFiber touches her household. Zantzinger's home tech company can now expand because she has the capacity she needs from ECFiber. Zantzinger also discusses how fiber access helps her son academically:

My son attends an online high school in a program offered through one of the top universities in the country. He attends video conference classes, lectures, meetings, and myriad other communications online to California, and places all over the globe.

Two years ago, we moved out of state, renting a house elsewhere to get the Internet, because my son was not able to participate in class. His grades suffered because of it. Last year, we rented an office in another town where Internet was available.

Zantzinger describes two growing trends - home based businesses and distance learning - that require access to broadband. Zantzinger shares strong words of praise for ECFiber's mission, experienced by her first hand:

ECFiber’s approach has been open and community-oriented. They just want to get it built, pay it off, and hand it over to the towns. They are willing to make things work, even if it is hard, if it means they can serve the customer. Their priorities as expressed in the meetings were amazing to me.

According to the ECFiber blog, funding is moving forward to bring the network to neaby Woodstock. From the blog:

As previously announced, local supporters of the effort to build a fiber-optic hub inside the Woodstock library have agreed to match any similar pledge dollar-for-dollar up to $100,000. This means that, so far, the Woodstock community has advanced $15,000 toward the ultimate goal of raising $400,000. The capital needed in Woodstock will pay to hang fiber-optic cable from the nearest ECFiber hub in Barnard, down Route...

Extensive Fiber Route Snaking Its Way Across Michigan

Posted October 24, 2012 by lgonzalez

The nonprofit Merit Network, Inc., of Michigan, started in 1966 as a way to provide networking help to the state's research and educational facilities across the state. Over the years, the organization has kept up with the times and is now spearheading the Rural, Education, Anchor, Community and Healthcare - Michigan Middle Mile Collaborative (REACH-3MC II) project.

The project will bring connectivity to community anchor institutions and underserved rural communities in the Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The exentive fiber project is funded with two Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program (BTOP) grants totaling $103.2 million. When completed, Upper and Lower Michigan will house an additional 2,287 miles of fiber.

Matt Roush recently reported on the project, which is well underway in Monroe County in the southern part of the state. Roush brought news about installation of telecommunications huts, an early step in expanding the network into northern Michigican. From the article:

REACH-3MC will connect 105 community anchor institutions as the network is built and will pass 900 more over time. Led by Merit Network, REACH-3MC includes sub-recipients from the private sector to make broadband readily available to households and businesses that lack adequate service options in the 52 counties that make up the project service area.

For more details on the project, including a map of the proposed routes, follow this link to a PDF of the project overview.

Community Broadband Bits 16 - JD Lester and Larry Gates - Chanute, Kansas

Posted October 9, 2012 by christopher

Following the release of our case study on Chanute, Kansas, we have an interview with City Manager JD Lester and Director of Utilities Larry Gates for our 16th podcast -- Community Broadband Bits.

JD Lester and Larry Gates discuss Chanute's network and its impact on their rural community. As detailed in the case study, Chanute built a fiber optic and wireless broadband network to connect schools, public safety, and local businesses. And they did it all without bonding or borrowing -- an impressive feat with implications for many other communities that have similar needs.